Wednesday, 3 March 2010

Smut or not smut

An interesting post on the always interesting ReadySteadyBlog. As someone whose new book (note subtle plug) is being marketed as 'part thriller, part love-story' and in which there is both a murder and a mystery to be solved, I was very interested to see Jon Fosse's stigmatization of the crime novel as 'pornography of death'. Take a look and see what you think. Here's a taste of his views:

What then about crime fiction, so highly esteemed as literature, at least here in the Scandinavian countries? Is it at all literature? No it isn’t. The aim of this literature is not to ask into the fundamentals of existence, of life, of death, it is not to try to reach the universal through the unique, it is a try to avoid such an asking, such unique universality, by stating already given answers that are not really answers, but just something one has heard before. It therefore feels as a pleasant and safe answer, and what feels pleasant and safe one could also call entertaining.

And when you've had a chance to read Any Human Face, I'll tell you what I think...

5 comments:

This definition of the function of literature - 'to ask into the fundamentals of existence, of life, of death...to try to reach the universal through the unique' - apart from being clumsily phrased and distinctly priggish is simply inadequate.

Equally clumsy and unsatisfactory is the notion that one can lump all Scandanavian crime novels together.

You've basically pre-empted me here, Brian. Though I think the clumsy phrasing might be the result of Fosse's not being a native speaker. He's clearly got it in for Stieg Larsson though. And there is a case for saying that the classic whodunit is a consolatory genre... But I'll save the rest of my thoughts for a later post, as I promised.

Personal information

Born in England, I've been living in central Italy since 1980. My début novel - LITTLE MONSTERS - was published by Picador on 7 March 2008. The paperback came out on 6 February 2009. A collection of short fiction, entitled THE SCENT OF CINNAMON AND OTHER STORIES, is now available from Salt Publishing. The title story was selected as one of the O. Henry Prize Stories 2007. My second novel, ANY HUMAN FACE, was published by Picador on 7 May 2010 and came out in paperback in November 2011. In February 2014, my new novel, THE VIEW FROM THE TOWER (Exhibit A) will be published along side a memoir (WITH A ZERO AT ITS HEART, The Friday Project).
(Photo credit: Patrizia Casamirra)